Monthly Archives: May 2016

You have finals coming up. We know because We’ve been watching you. Also We checked your school calendar. This will be an informative and helpful step-by-step guide that will instruct you on how to pass your finals by utilizing your hands. In order to do this, there are a few prerequisites that you will need to check off prior to receiving this information.

Prerequisite 1: 2 hands

Prerequisite 2:

Okay, now that you have checked off the required prerequisites, here is the step-by-step guide that We promised way back when. You have come a long way. Lets begin.

Step 1: Pat yourself on the back for coming such a long way

You go very well.

Step 2: DO NOT USE YOUR HANDS TO OPEN YOUR TEXTBOOK!!!

Studying will get you nowhere, and is a waste of those hands that you came such a long way for. You are going to fail if you study. This is science and science is never wrong, like global warming or the consistent output of hits by Jason Derulo. Trust Us. We made a list.

Step 3: Buy 2 gallons of milk

This is a crucial step. Do not forget this one. You may buy more than 2, but no less, or else you will risk failing your finals. Hands should be used during this step, but if you find a way to get by without them, maybe you should be writing this article instead of Us.

Step 4: Stay up all night on a mixture of PCP and Ritalin

This is pretty easy. Just go to your local business major or dickbird with an obnoxiously loud automobile and ask for some PCP and/or Ritalin. Most likely he/she/they will have both. Take all of it in one sitting to help you stay up. Lay down on the ice cold floor and wish for the bad cherubs to go away. “PLEASE GO AWAY DEMONS!!!” you must shout at them if you wish for them to stop biting your fragile hands. Protect your hands. The side effects will haunt you for about 4-6 business days, but it is worth it. Trust Us. Again, We made a list. Again.

Step 5: Saunter into your final and sit down in the very front row

Pretty self-explanatory. Saunter as heavily as possible so that everyone is forced to look at you in horror like the feral Icetroll you have become. Keep those hands where everyone can see them though. You’re a student, not a murderer. But you own this room now big boy.

Step 6: Stare your professor down with the inescapable abyss that was once your pupils (hands NOT required here)

If you have completed every step in the correct fashion, your professor should notice you immediately as they walk/roll/crawl through the door. They will most likely not react, as they are a college professor and have seen this before. You do not faze them. Yet.

Step 7: DO NOT TAKE YOUR FINAL!!!

Again, another important step. Do not take the final that your professor has laid before you, no matter how much it beckons to you. That is not what your hands are for. You must not give in or you will fail. Continue to stare at your professor like a wax statue of Gary Busey until time is up and everyone has turned in their final and left. Now it’s your move.

Step 8: Approach your professor’s desk

Everyone is gone. It’s just you and your professor. Cha-cha slide out of your desk and slither over to your professor’s. This will not faze them. Again, they have been here before. Remember to maintain eye contact. Show him your hands but DO NOT use them. Now, begin to get on your knees, open your dehydrated, dry as sandpaper mouth, and…

Step 9: Beg for a C

Beg like the middle class mutt that you are. Break down crying. Kiss their hand. Offer to bathe their kids for a month. Do whatever it takes. However, DO NOT OFFER ANY SEXUAL FAVORS!!! That is weird. You are not weird. You are an average college student, just desperate for a C. C’s are not worth sexual favors. If this works, you will not have had to use those delicate, beautiful hands that you acquired, and you will have passed your finals. But in the case that that doesn’t work, pull out those milk jugs that you bought before (hands required) and…

Step 10: Challenge your professor to a milk-drinking contest

Slam the milk on the table and challenge your professor to a duel: dairy style. They will have been fazed, as they have not seen this before. However, they will take you up on the challenge, because it is written in the professor code of conduct that they must agree to any student challenge in order to get out of a final. Now both of you must take your jug of milk and on the count of 3, begin to chug it. Whoever throws up first loses. The trick to this is that your body is young and exuberant and packing two cocoa butter smooth hands, and your professor’s is dried up and full of prune juice and smells like someone who frequents Hobby Lobby but doesn’t actually buy anything. They should break first, and in turn immediately give you an A. “But what happens if I break first” you may have just asked yourself out loud in the middle of a crowded library. To that we first say “Shut up. You’re being a menace”. But just in case, We have developed a back up plan for you.

Step 11: Gouge their eyes out with well moisturized, child-like hands that you acquired

Launch your ENTIRE body at your professor full speed and shove those young, 100% vegan hands straight into your professors eye-sockets. They will shriek in fear and agony, but do not let up. This is what you were born to do. Keep your hands in their eyes until they stop moving, either out of shock or because they’re dead. It doesn’t matter. You are now the murderer that you just tried to convince everyone you weren’t. Now, mosey on over to your professors computer and give yourself a well deserved A. You did good, scamp. You are free to go…But are you really free?

Step 12: Flee to Estonia

Now that you’ve murdered someone, you’re going to need to leave the United States of America as soon as possible. You may go anywhere you like, but We suggest buying a one way ticket to Estonia exclusively for the reason that they have universal wifi. Remember, you may now be a criminal who will never get to see their beloved family or friends again, but much like Edward Snowden, you have 2 wonderful hands that helped to change the world.

Congratulations. You have just passed Intro to Cinema Studies. We wish you the best.

It’s time we all stop focusing on the negatives.

Generalizations. They’re no good, right? Especially the bad ones. As fiction breeds stock characters with which to weave a narrative, non-fiction news reporting generalizes individual people to exploit for a story. Take me, for example. I, Sweeney Todd, the Honest Barber of Fleet Street, provide many goods and services to the people of the good city of London. I perform in public, I give expert shaves and haircuts, and I also help my girlfriend manage a bakery, which produces the freshest, highest quality meat pies around. Yet, the only publicity I get from the papers are barbed and intolerant criticisms.

You see, the media is obsessed with labels. “Demon,” “cannibal,” “killer.” Those kind of labels breed hatred and spread mistrust. Although my business partners and I devote endless time and energy to caring for our sweet, sweet friends and neighbors, the instant that one person loses their life, I become “The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” Why can’t we move beyond these stereotypes? It may be true that I lure unsuspecting people into my barbershop, slit their throats, and slide them down the laundry chute into my girlfriend’s basement. But that’s not all I may or may not do. This dehumanizes me, causes me to lose business, and mostly just makes me feel sad.

If, hypothetically, I stopped “killing my customers,” maybe the media would ease off a little bit. But, how would we stay on the cutting edge of the market if I changed this essential tenet of our operation? It comes down to the principle of the thing; no one should be expected to conform to the media’s warped, unrealistic depiction of morality nowadays.

So yeah, call me what you will. With this, I, Sweeney Todd, “The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” challenge the media to just stop noticing if I kill people. All this does is create a culture of negativity and fear, and that has nothing to do with me! What’s the point in telling people about bad things that happen? Life is hard enough as it is, believe me. Let’s just only talk about good things from now on! We can all be better than the media machine.

To the members of the media, I challenge you to write an editorial on how crisp and clean my haircuts are, rather than insinuating that I may or may not kill my patrons and bake them into pies. Obviously, no one is completely good or completely evil. Once society moves past this heinous moral binary, we can all work together to end this stereotype that plagues me and my business. Society needs to realize that barbers are people too, no matter what that sinking feeling in your gut tells you. After all, doesn’t everyone deserve to live their life in peace?

Wow it’s really fucking (cw: peanut allergy) n*ts that we’re at the point where we’re even writing this. When (cw: male comedian) M*tt, our head writer, came to us with this idea you better believe that we both said (cw: Satanism) “oh h*ll no” right out of the gate.

For real though, what college publication in their right mind would decide to do something like this? We all saw what happened when the Chronicle published that editorial a few weeks back. The only difference is that we’re not trying to say something terrible and if you’ll read closely enough, you’ll pick up on the several hand-crafted layers of irony that we’ve attempted to lacquer this entire issue in. As it turns out, it seems like we’ve done a fairly good job of talking about this without really saying anything at all, which is the best we could hope for, right? (For the record, this is a satirical magazine, please read our disclaimer, if you think we are serious then you are very ill-informed). That kind of sucks but trust me, nobody wants to read an issue full of our hot opinions (not even any of us!) which are, for the record, what you could call significantly left of center. Remember the time we got yelled at in the student center for “““censoring Republican voices””” because one time this crazy Yung Rep came to a Nonsense meeting and told everyone that guns turn him on and we thought he was really fucking weird? (That actually happened!!!) That’s, the liberal media for you, am I right fellas? Hyuk hyuk. Anyways, we digress…

If there was ever a point to this, the original idea was to make fun of how crazy things would get if the kind of people who exaggerate the ideas behind political correctness—the kind of person who would label us as “millennial crybabies” or share political cartoons on Facebook of college students in diapers—were right in all their outlandish doom and gloom. Ultimately, we ended up doing what we usually do and letting the theme kind of carry itself out, but there are a few traces of that original idea floating around. Now it seems to be us writing this issue as people who have—to a very stupid, outrageous degree—next to no idea of what any of being “politically correct” is about, or who have picked up the rhetoric of being “PC” or being “anti-PC” in order to make an incredibly stupid point. To some degree, this feels to be an accurate, albeit exaggerated, portrayal of what it’s like writing something like this and seeing the way that people around you view this sort of thing. We poke some fun at certain things, while maybe making a point here or there. We started off this year by asking in the Hofstra Issue editorial if you could just laugh with us laughing at you for once, and now I guess we’re asking you to, collectively, laugh with us at all of us, or something like that?

On a more serious note, this year Nonsense has managed to accomplish more than we could have ever hoped. We had a very large influx of new members, we found an incredible person and artist to help us with the designs of our magazine (which you can see are really spectacular), we got into disputes with OSLE right out the gate and won them, we printed this magazine on paper for the first time in 4 years, we started a website that has garnered almost 12,000 views, we went on to print two more physical issues as well as produce two digital ones, we attended a national conference for college humor magazines where we met writers from The Onion and ClickHole, we put together a publication collaboration with Hofstra English Society’s Font, and we won the fucking “Best Media Organization of the Year” award from Hofstra for literally making fun of this place so much. The last issue of Nonsense to be printed before this school year (all the way back in 2012) was called “Is Nonsense Dead?” and now we’re coming out of this school year having done a complete and total turn around. We are not dead, and you can fucking expect to hear more of us as soon as literally possible.

Shouts out to Denise and Karl at OSLE, as well as Professor Karofsky and our new lawyer Stuart “First Amendment” Rabinowitz for making all of this possible for a shitrag of millennial whiners. Also, speaking of millennial whiners, we could not have done any of this without our incredible staff of insane fucking people. We may not have gotten our class work in on time, but we, idk, produced something special or some sentimental shit like that.Kiss our collective ass Hofstra,

Hats off to Hofstra University once again for establishing an environment just suitable enough to get those litigious ass pancakes off their case! As I’m sure you all know, diversity is an issue. A serious issue. One that you should change the tone of your voice for. In an effort to become a truly all-inclusive campus, Hofstra has proudly unveiled bathrooms available for any and all genders and sexualities on the fourteenth floors of Estabrook, Constitution, Enterprise, and Vander Poel Halls. Now we all know the real-estate industry here at Hofstra has really been booming ever since the eviction of those job-stealing leeches over in Estabrook. What we can expect from these events is for Hofstra to step it up and create an environment that says, “Gay? Fine by Hofstra!”

“The truth is, you can be as gay as you want in these bathrooms,” says university spokesperson for diversity, Gerald. “You can waltz right in there with two guys; two girls; one guy and one girl; three girls and one guy; two guys and three girls; four girls and one guy; two girls and one guy; an F. Scott Fitzgerald mannequin and three guys; five guys, burgers, and fries, the possibilities are truly endless. I mean hey, it’s legal now! #Lovewins.”

“These bathrooms are clearly marked for use of any and every gender by not being marked at all. This dates back to when the towers were built in 1967—issues of this sort were surely, certainly on the universities mind. Talk about being ahead of the curve! The intentional ambiguity of the bathrooms makes it basically sort of just okay enough that should anyone of any gender use them while at the same time allowing us to just shrug when someone else complains that their religious freedom is being trampled on,” says pesky schemer Ralph Aynolbeid. “Now leave us alone, already.”

However, other buildings such as Bill of Rights and Alliance Halls still remain stubborn and are willing to go to such extremes as purposely eliminating a fourteenth floor altogether so that there is no room for multi-gender bathrooms. It’s a shame that these buildings are still behind in the pursuit of PC but maybe one day those grouchy old concrete beasts will accept the changing of times, as predicted by Bob Dylan in the 2009 hit film, Watchmen. Either way, four entire buildings is plenty enough progress for one billing cycle. Classic, liberal New York can finally stop badgering the good people of Hofstra.

Now, a common question and concern upon reading this article may be, “All genders? I thought there were only two!” Contrary to popular belief, there are actually more than two genders available for human use and everyone with any gender can use the specially designed all-inclusive fourteenth floor bathrooms at Hofstra University. I mean like, no one is going to stop you. Seriously. Male? Yes! Female? Yeah. Gender fluid? Yep. Intersex. Demi-Boy? I don’t see why not! Demi-girl? Are you even listening? Demi-God? I mean, the bathrooms in Valhalla are surely nicer, but what the hell? Poor? No. Try Popeyes.

Still, some people were unsatisfied and unconvinced as they begged the question that sure, all genders are accepted, but what about all sexualities? Were people of the bisexual persuasion allowed to use these so-called all-inclusive bathrooms?

The only answer they received was “Yeah, gay people can use the bathrooms too. We said that already.”

Put your hands in the air, Nonsense readers, if Sir Walter Disney is your problematic fave! Everybody? If not you need to come see me in my office immediately, to have a discussion about why you can’t feel 100% comfortable in liking the things you like. Our talented artists here at Nonsense have done a quick google search for other people’s art to show you these gender swapped disney characters to make a not entirely clear point about representation!

1. Ariel

There! Isn’t that better? Take that, gender norms!

2. Gaston

Can your fragile masculinity take it? Did we blow your mind?

3. Tiana

Okay, so like…I didn’t want to say anything before, but like…and I don’t quite know how to put this…but like…everyone’s before and afters are the same.

4. Mulan

Like I don’t want to be problematic or anything—but this is kind of a visual exercise?

5. That bird from Cinderella

No, no—of course…but like…like is it all the same down…down there too?

I don’t care how hard you work, or how much you have to pee. Sit down right now. Right now. Put down your pasta spoon. I said put it down. It’s time for all the men out there to listen up, because here are seven things that we all agree need to end.

1. Contacting all of my male relatives (dead or alive) to ask them for their blessing for marriage

The constant séances in my living room are an affront to my personhood. Men need to realize that my great-great-great-great-grand-uncle doesn’t own me, and that contacting him from beyond the grave is only acceptable when searching for his buried treasure.

2. Only allowing boys to eat the grass with their teeth when it is time for it to be cut

Everyone’s lives would be easier if all the children were allowed to eat the grass when the long grass season begins, but only boys get to join in on the fun. Letting me and my girlfriends join in on the fun is not only efficient, it’s a human right.

3. My neighbor, Todd

4. Being addressed as “little pile” by men who are taller than me

I am a human, and in no way am a pile of dirt and despair piled into a tiny mass in an attempt to create a human. It is time once and all for us to move on and come up with a name that better represents me… “large pile” perhaps?

5. Needing to rub Ragu on my nose to ward off the evil desires of The Darkest One

Ragu is significantly more expensive than more generic brands of pasta sauce, and it’s just not in my budget to get a new jar whenever the chosen one warns of The Darkest One’s coming. Women of all shapes and sizes deserve to feel safe from evil’s whims wearing only generic brand pasta sauce.

6. Having to replace the wheels of my bike with large flowers that can only be found in the woods

The woods are frightening and I don’t like them at all! I want to be able to use a bike with wheels just like all the boys in town. The large flowers are pretty but they don’t come in a color that matches my fire engine red Huffy.

7. Assuming that I have six years of drag racing experience under my belt because I am a girl who has been drag racing for six years

It is rude to make assumptions, and I am sick and tired of men assuming I am a qualified drag racer just because I list it on my resume, and mention it in every conversation. My gender has nothing to do with my sick fucking drag racing skills.

There it is. The seven ways that our culture needs to totally find its chill. And if you disagree with these ways, I want you to delete your Facebook. I only want to receive birthday messages from strangers who I agree with politically. Your posts will be missed, GramGram.